Oct
25
Oct
25
L'Île Noire
Posted in: Animation
ANIMATED SHORTFILM BY NINO CHRISTEN Animation: Nino Christen & Milan Hofstetter Cut: Marcel Ramsay Sounddesign/Mix: Peter Bräker Foleys: Darko Linder Production: Nino Christen Co-Production: Swiss Radio and Television | SRG SSR | Catherine A. Berger & Gabriela Bloch Steinmann Official website: ninochristen.ch/lilenoire Year: 2014 Country: Switzerland SYNOPSIS english: On an island, at the edge of the woods, a watchman and his bird live a miserable and isolated life. One day a deceptive chance came up to escape the boredom. But great danger lurks behind it. deutsch: Ein Wachmann und sein Vogel verbringen zusammen ein ereignisloses Dasein auf einer Insel am Waldrand. Eines Tages ergibt sich eine trügerische Chance der Langeweile zu entkommen. Doch hinter lauten Klängen nähert sich eine dunkle Gefahr. français: Sur une île à l’orée de la forêt, un gardien et son oiseau vivent leurs vies solitaires. Surgit alors une chance d’échapper à l’ennui. Mais les apparences peuvent être trompeuses… L’Île Noire has been screened at following ACADEMY AWARD® qualifying animation film festivals: – ENCOUNTERS SHORT FILM AND ANIMATION FESTIVAL (U.K.) September 2015 – ANIMA MUNDI (Brazil) July 2015 – HIROSHIMA INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL (Japan) August 2014 – HUESCA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (Spain) June 2014 – LEEDS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (U.K.) November 2014 – MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (Australia) August 2014 – STUTTGART FESTIVAL OF ANIMATED FILM (Germany) April 2014 … and more then 80 international animation film festivals. See the complete list here: http://www.ninochristen.ch/#/lle-noire1/
Oct
25
KASHMIR — A Lost Paradise
Posted in: Animation
Read more about the Kashmir tragedy � www.stanislasgiroux.com/stories-of-kashmir In 3 weeks exploring Kashmir, i experienced an overwhelming contrast of beauty, hospitality, and tragedy. This video is what i saw, in 3 minutes. This is my video-attempt to make people aware of this misunderstood part of the world, spread the word, and try to make things change. In the XIII century, Kashmir was described by Persians poets as Heaven on Earth. Since the Independence in 1947, Kashmir initially decided to remain independent, choosing not to become a part of either Pakistan or India. Since then, this Heaven slowly faded to a place where blood spilling is part of daily life. But the Kashmiri people is the most welcoming and hospitable on earth, taking life in such an easy way, that is sometimes hard to believe that it’s sadly a war zone. Shot almost only on 28mm, 4K. Gear : A7s II 28mm DJI Mavic Music: Armand Amar — Civilizations Hugs to Dad, Pierre, Mathieu Maury, and Ninie ❤
Oct
25
Spoon – Do I Have To Talk You Into It?
Posted in: Animation
Directed by Brook Linder Producer: Frances Capell Executive Producer: Evan Cohen Production Company: treeboy pictures Director of Photography: Frank Mobilio Assistant Camera: Steven Doyle Gaffer: Chris Walters Hair/Makeup: Candice Birns Animation: Adam Padilla, Jack Wagner Photo Editors: Anthony Isaac, Vlad Sepetov, Kelsie Pickle Color: Kaitlyn Battistelli
Oct
25
He was a nice guy… until she came. SXSW 2015, Jury Award Winner in Midnight Shorts Maryland Film Festival, Official Selection deadCENTER Film Festival, Official Selection Beyond Fest, Official Selection Cucalorus, Official Selection St. Louis International Film Festival, Official Selection Yale Film Colloqium Starring: Anton Yelchin, Kate Lyn Sheil, Buck Henry Written, directed and produced by Gillian Wallace Horvat Produced by Riel Roch Decter and Daniel Waters
Oct
25
Special effects secrets
Posted in: Animation
For SYFY WIRE, I got to chat to the team at Blood Brothers FX about the joy of practical effects for horror films (warning, slightly gory).
Oct
25
As a follow-up to my earlier coverage of Double Negative’s ménage à trois hologram work for Blade Runner 2049, overall visual effects supervisor now shares with vfxblog how Dneg also carried out the stunning giant hologram scene also featuring Joi.
This time, actress Ana de Armas is playing Joi as a hologram advertisement as she sizes up to a dejected Ryan Gosling as K. The sequence involved a greenscreen shot for de Armas, and a separate shoot with interactive lighting for Gosling. Dneg then weaved its hologram magic for the final shots, as Nelson runs down here.
John Nelson: We call it the Pink Joi scene. We shot in the first couple of days of photography. We shot Ana in pink makeup and not much else, on greenscreen, looking at a Coke bottle sized cut-out of K. Then we also had witness cameras on that. We body-tracked the body of Ana and mapped her into a CG version of Joi. We created a ton of projection effects and interior effects and back-shape effects. Then little serrations on her face, which were aimed at looking like pixels. We called it the dollar bill effect, when you look at a bill close-up and you see these little pixels on her face.
Later, we shot K. Roger filmed this on a set which had a 24 or 30 foot tall video wall, like a screen you get for rock concerts and that served as the interactive lighting. What he did is Roger put the footage we shot of Joi, of Ana, on that video wall. Of course, she’s flat. Then he completely misted up the whole stage so the stage got really atmospheric and filled with mist. The light from the screen would infect the mist. There were no cities. There wasn’t a lot of stuff in the distance or detail in the distance. What it did do is it lit up the atmosphere in a really nice way.
So then we went and mapped Pink Joi onto the CG version of her. We created all this with CG projection. CG back-face of Joi, and interactive stuff inside her. Then more rain to add on top of the rain that’s in the scene. Then we added all the city in the background. Then we added in brutalistic buildings, and the spinners. Then we completed the atmospheric overlap from the holographic Joi, which is now sitting on top of the mist that was affected by the big video wall.
Oct
25
GodSpeed Games founder Ranbeer Hora : Great product and marketing are keys to success
Posted in: Animation
Game development and support have eased no end ever since the inception of GodSpeed Games. The Pune-based gaming solutions company, started only in 2012, have already made big strides in the gaming segment.
Having delivered services to some top shouts of the stream such as 505 Games, FluidGames, Games2win, Digital Tribe Games et cetera, it’s suffice to say GodSpeed Games have come a long way in a relatively short span of time.
GodSpeed Gaming Solutions (GodSpeed Games) is one of the leading games and technology companies, providing games and application development, live ops, games quality assurance and game support services to global leading companies. GodSpeed Games was founded in the year 2012. Its core team members are:
Ranbeer Singh Hora – Founder/managing director
Ranbeer is an experienced manager for video games services, games production and customer support operations. With over 12 years of experience in games technologies, Ranbeer is leading the company. He founded GodSpeed Games in the year 2012 with the testing division and gradually moved up the ladder adding development and game support in the services arm.
Druhin Mukherjee – Co-founder/development director
Druhin heads the development and production arm at GodSpeed. Druhin has over 10 years of experience in the games industry. He was the first Indian to win the BAFTA for games development. His previous company called Project Autismus in New Zealand was primarily involved in making games for autistic kids from three to 15 years of age.
In an exclusive interview with Animation Xpress, GodSpeed Games gave an insight into their company, their current projects and what’s in store for the future.
Tell us about the current projects you are working on in details and your target audience
Ranbeer: At GodSpeed, we are building a multiplayer sports engine which can be used to deliver your favourite sports games across all the major gaming platforms. We will soon be releasing our first android game using the sports engine.
And no surprise that we have picked country’s favourite sport cricket to be our first title.We have created a passively multiplayer online cricket game where players compete against other players in simulated scenarios. The idea is to build your own squad and then compete with other teams with random challenges that are controlled from server.
We offer both matchmaking as well as option to play against your Facebook friend. We have tried to keep the controls simple so that everyone can get a hang of it easily.
The other IP we are working on is in association with our publishing partners You42. We are bringing their musical title Duel Beats for global audiences with added Bollywood tadka to it. Duel Beats is a competitive VS beat rhythm battle game. Take down your friends in adrenaline fueled musical battles where each tap and swipe inflicts major damage.
The current English version of title is already live and was also featured by Apple. We will be adding more heroes and contents specific to a Bollywood themed title and will be releasing it globally. We even intend to localise the title for our Indian audiences and come up with packs offering regional music to the players. The title is scheduled for mid-2018 release.
Give us an overview of your marketing and business side
Ranbeer: For every startup, finding the perfect marketing strategy holds the key for success. Having a great product alone is not enough to succeed in today’s competitive world. At the same time, no amount of marketing will make a crap product gain a mass audience.
GodSpeed believes that to be successful you must have a great product as well as great marketing. We have thereby laid out our business vision to define our strategy.
What are your future plans in details?
Ranbeer: GodSpeed Games has two different verticals – one is the services division which offers testing, live ops and games support services. And other is our production and publishing arm. We are licensed studios with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. This gives us access to the next-gen console testing and development hardware.
GodSpeed is also building up its production arm and is actively looking for skilled individuals to join our team. We are working on our first mobile game to be released globally on android by the first week of November. Currently we have hit our milestone and title is under closed beta stage. We have also signed up two international IP’s and will be bringing these IP’s for Indian audiences. We are looking at 2018 mid as release for these IPs.
The post GodSpeed Games founder Ranbeer Hora : Great product and marketing are keys to success appeared first on AnimationXpress.
Oct
25
As the bacchanalic atmosphere of Halloween begins to engulf, the movie buffs have quite another reason to cheer as Gerard Butler-starrer Geostorm rolls into cinemas this Friday.
A disaster film, Dean Devlin’s directorial debut chronicles a deadly storm that threatens to cripple the earth with its cataclysmic consequences, culminated on account of the malfunctioning of some climate-controlling satellites.
Whilst the high-adrenaline trailers have set the pulses racing, the release has generated palpable (and plausible) excitement. However, here are certain things you may want to know before heading to the theatres (in case you’re planning to)
Double Negative to the credits for Geostorm VFX
Being a disaster movie, visual effects form an instrumental part of Geostorm. Like Armageddon, 2012, San Andreas and many others before it, this one too is replete with depictions of monumental mass destructions, and that naturally calls for some complex yet visually enchanting VFX.
Prominent British motion picture company Double Negative have weighed in majorly with the special effects, and mind you, they look stunning!
The ginormous space satellites, cities getting washed across with massive tidal waves, the catastrophic cyclones sucking everything on its way and many more VFX-heavy scenes make up Geostorm.
Visually though, a viewer is in for a treat. Credits also to Flash Film Works, Framestore, Hydraulx, Inguenity studios, Method studios, Rising Sun Pictures and Soho VFX for their impeccable work with the effects.
Weather-control and subsequent disaster: A tried and tested concept
Climate-controlling satellites gone haywire may seem new to the ears, but it’s a concept that’s been in the movie circuit for ages and only a handful few know about this.
The first traces of it could be found as long ago as 1959 when the 25-minute documentary Eyes in Outer Space was made, wherein the Paul Frees-narrated story talked about plans of satellites not only predicting the weather, but also controlling it.
Our Man Flint (1966) soon followed suit, and in fact, even West Germany came up with a production of their own, The Noah’s Ark Principle in 1984!
A still from ‘The Day After Tomorrow’
The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Owning the Weather (2009) and even the Sony Pictures animation Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs that same year, are some of the movies of the Twenty First century that involve a plot identically similar to that of Geostorm.
Director Dean Devlin may have tried to stir up a new (geo) storm here, but that’s more like a storm in a tea cup.
Butler dons the saviour’s hat, again!
We may not have seen him dressing up in a superhero costume, sporting a mask and gliding through the tall skyscrapers like our Marvel and DC heroes, but Gerard Butler has regardless been there and done that.
In ‘London Has Fallen’, Butler’s character is tasked with protecting the US president from terrorists
If not exactly a superhero, Butler has donned the saviour’s hat on numerous occasions in the past. Olympus Has Fallen, London Has Fallen, 300, Machine Gun Preacher, the upcoming Hunter Killer and many more have seen the Brit star not just leading the cast but also essaying the role of a saviour, in one way or the other.
In Geostorm too, he’s the rescue man, a former ICSS commander who’s tasked with saving the planet once the calamity strikes. Of course, he’s backed by the whole ICSS team in the noble cause, but Butler’s the man, the honcho who’ll chaperon them throughout the cataclysm.
The Avengers? Justice League? who’re they!
Geostorm – The Game
In case you didn’t know already, Sticky Studios have launched a Geostorm version of their own – the game version!
Based on the premise of the movie itself, the game however comes with its own twist as three members of the Dutch Boy project have to gather and transfer information about a rogue satellite to the International Space Station, in what is also a turn-based puzzle.
Sounds interesting?
The game comes in four chapters of which the last and concluding one will be released later this year. Available on both Android and iOS, the Geostorm game has accrued upto half a million downloads and is absolutely free to play.
So go ahead, experience the geostorm and become your own agent Jack Lawson!
The post Some interesting trivias to know ahead of ‘Geostorm’ release appeared first on AnimationXpress.
Oct
25
Kidscreen has announced the 27 animation concepts that have been selected for the 2017 Asian Animation Summit (AAS) showcase.
Representing the very best kids animated TV development work across Australia, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, China and New Zealand, these projects will be presented live to the audience.
‘The Fridgers’ and ‘Gaia’s Guardians’
This year’s event is set to take place in Brisbane, Australia from 29 November to 1 December. Over the course of the three-day event, each project will be presented in a moderated live pitch and question-answer format, with plenty of time for follow-up meetings and casual networking built into the schedule.
It is anticipated that roughly 250 attendees will take part in Asian Animation Summit 2017, which is designed to attract animation producers who are interested in co-production with partners in Asia-Pacific countries, as well as broadcasters, distributors and investors from the region and beyond.
Roughly 50 per cent of projects that debuted at previous AAS events have since gone into production, including series as Bottersnikes & Gumbles (2012), Kuu Kuu Harajuku (2013), Wonderballs (2012) and Balloon Barnyard (2014).
‘Bear & Salmon’ and ‘Salad Bunnies’
This year’s projects include:
Bear & Salmon Like A Photon Creative (Australia)
Billie B Brown Princess Pictures (Australia)
Chippy Hood MOSTAPES (South Korea)
Cican Hellomotion (Indonesia)
Cubic Cats Animatic Studios (Malaysia)
Cupcake Fairy Pink and Friends B.I. Group (South Korea)
Egggoog StudioINYO (South Korea)
Gaia’s Guardians Xhabition (Thailand)
Get R.E.A.L. Red Thirty One (Australia)
Gogo’s Book Journey XrisP (South Korea)
Lunla YGGDRAZIL (Thailand)
Marmalade Mighty Nice (Australia)
Next Quest Lil Critter Workshop (Malaysia)
Pets vs Aliens Lumine Studio (Indonesia)
Pinkfong Wonderstar SmartStudy (South Korea)
Ridiculous Illusionist Animation Studio (Malaysia)
Salad Bunnies Giggle Garage (Malaysia)
Silvers Pow Studios (New Zealand)
Skyriders Scribble Studios (Malaysia)
Slow Slow Sloth NEUL JBugsCo (South Korea)
The Entomon Academy Floating World Animation Studio (China)
The Fridgers B.A.S.E. Studio (Indonesia)
The Jan and Rai Show BES Animation (Australia)
Time Hopper As-Motion Studios (Thailand)
Toby & Friends MIRAYI (Malaysia)
Wings Across the World Furneaux Media Productions (Australia)
Wormholes Oh Yeah Wow (Australia)
AAS is owned and produced by Kidscreen, with support from hosting partners Screen Queensland and Brisbane Marketing; presenting partners KOCCA (Korea), MDEC (Malaysia) and DEPA/DITP (Thailand) and supporting partner AINAKI (Indonesia).
(This article has been contributed and edited by Anshita Bhatt)
The post 27 animation projects head to Kidscreen’s Asian Animation Summit appeared first on AnimationXpress.
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